Over Her Dead Body

A spirited romantic comedy2stars Go to showtimes

Published 6:30 am, Friday, February 1, 2008

Henry's (Paul Rudd) fiancée Kate (Eva Longoria Parker) is killed on their wedding day in Over Her Dead Body.

Henry's (Paul Rudd) fiancée Kate (Eva Longoria Parker) is killed on their wedding day in Over Her Dead Body.

Photo: New Line Cinema

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Ashley (Lake Bell) is haunted by her boyfriend’s former fiancee's ghost (Eva Longoria Parker), who considers it her heavenly duty to break up the romance in Over Her Dead Body.

Ashley (Lake Bell) is haunted by her boyfriend’s former fiancee's ghost (Eva Longoria Parker), who considers it her heavenly duty to break up the romance in Over Her Dead Body.

Photo: New Line Cinema

Over Her Dead Body

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There's a guy, right? And he's killed by a mugger, but he can't move on to the next world until he figures out how to protect his girlfriend from a creep with romantic designs.

So he finds a psychic, and he. Oops. Wrong movie. Let's try again.

There's a guy, right? And he's hit by a truck, but he can't move on to the next world until figures out how to quarterback the L.A. Rams in the Super Bowl. But a dapper angel finds him another body, and. . . .

Oh. Wait. That's not right, either.

There's a gal, right? And she gets crushed by an ice sculpture (of a wingless angel: go, irony), but she can't move on to the next world until she figures out how to protect her fiance from a psychic he's dating. She haunts the woman within an inch of her sanity, keeping her awake nights and hovering intrusively as the concupiscent pair grapple in bed. ``Wow, this is going to be awkward,'' she says, assuming a position directly overhead. Then she hums a carnival tune. Nice.

So it goes in Over Her Dead Body, an unsurprising entry in that hoary micro-genre of romantic comedies to feature a fresh-from-the-corpse disembodied spirit who just can't seem to get a move-on. There's always some unfinished business to attend to, whether it's girlfriend protection, à la Ghost, or football, à la Heaven Can Wait. (In previous and later versions, it's boxing and stand-up comedy.)

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The dearly departed in this instance is one Kate Spencer (Desperate Housewives'Eva Longoria Parker), a gorgeous and tetchy creature whose first words, upon arriving in a blinding-white afterlife, are: ``Who the hell are you?'' So speaketh she to an angel of the Lord. The angel responds as any angel would, i.e., she tells Kate to shut up. But Kate will not shut up, and the angel poofs away without giving her final instructions. Unsure what earthly task she's been assigned, Kate assumes she has been enjoined to shield her beloved fiance, Dan (Paul Rudd), from that annoying hottie-soothsayer, Ashley (Lake Bell).

Dan is a depressed veterinarian. It's now a year since Kate was pulverized by the ice sculpture - truly, she was touched by an angel - and he refuses to look at another woman. His worried sister Chloe (Lindsay Sloane) arranges a reading with Ashley, who runs a catering business with a pathetically chipper man friend (Jason Biggs) when she isn't hearing voices from the Great Beyond. Chloe hopes that if Ashley can just get in touch with Kate, then Kate will tell Ashley to tell Dan that he should start dating again. What Chloe doesn't know is that Kate has no desire to see Dan start dating again, and she will sabotage any effort made by any female who makes any attempt to do so. Specifically Ashley.

Over Her Dead Body was written and directed by Jeff Lowell, who also wrote the girlfriend-revenge high jinks of John Tucker Must Die - do you sense a theme? His first outing as director is not, as such, bad, and most of the comedy goes down easy enough. Parker is a fine one for big egos in tiny dresses, and I quite fancied the sight of her levitating. Rudd, minus his whipped-masculine sarcasm, is merely whipped. Moping is not his métier. But Bell compensates with a roomy grin and likeable schnookiness that warms the romance and gets a few laughs to boot. She's the Blithe Spirit here.

Which reminds me. There's an author, right? And he holds a séance in his home, but then his dead first wife crashes the party.